Other complaints

Crowding on trains

Complaints about crowding on trains should first be sent to the train company concerned. The train company has to respond to your concerns, explaining what went wrong and what they are doing to do to improve matters. More on crowding on trains.

Health and safety complaints

Complaints regarding health and safety can be sent to our customer correspondence team. They will then be forwarded to the relevant railway safety team member.

If you are a railway company employee and have a health and safety complaint that has not been successful with your manager, with the unions or with CIRAS, you may contact us and we will forward your complaint to the appropriate railway safety team member. Your confidentiality will be protected, if that is what you want.

Complaints about Network Rail

Network Rail is responsible for the railway network. This includes:

line-side maintenance including vegetation and fencing

track quality

environmental issues such as noise and vibration, pollution and graffiti

railway structures such as bridges, station buildings, overhead lines, tunnels and signalling

We provide information on what Network Rail is responsible for and how you can make a complaint or enquiry. But Network Rail's licence is designed so that our regulatory controls are at a high level, so we are unlikely to be able to intervene in many individual complaints.

Consumer complaints

We do not intervene in individual complaints. If you have a complaint, please first contact the relevant train company. Contact details for train companies can be found on the National Rail Enquiries website. If you are not satisfied with the train company’s response, you can contact Transport Focus or London TravelWatch.

Complaints about us

We aim to provide an efficient and helpful service. However, if you are unhappy with the service you have received, please complain in writing to the senior executive in the customer correspondence team.

Your complaint will be acknowledged and forwarded to the relevant ORR director, who will investigate.

We aim to respond and investigate such complaints within 20 working days. If it becomes apparent that our investigation will take longer, we will inform you at the earliest opportunity.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may contact the Parliamentary Ombudsman to re-investigate the concerns you have raised.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman ensures that public bodies comply with the terms of their complaints handling procedure, and ensures that customers receive the service to which they are entitled.

Our customer correspondence team (CCT)

Our customer correspondence team (CCT) deals with enquiries and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from members of the public.